WEC Prologue: Rebellion gets within 0.5s of Toyota

Toyota remained on top on the second morning of the FIA World Endurance Championship Prologue test in Barcelona, as leading privateer Rebellion closed in on the Japanese marque's laptimes.

Early on in the four-hour morning session, Mike Conway clocked a time of 1m29.623s in the #7 TS050 Hybrid, some three tenths faster than Tuesday’s benchmark set by Jose Maria Lopez.

Team newcomer Brendon Hartley was second in the sister #8 car with a 1m29.719s, which he set with some 30 minutes remaining.

Rebellion improved on its best time from Tuesday by almost a second, as Gustavo Menezes posted 1m30.110s in the second hour in the #3 Rebellion R-13.

That was just 0.487s shy of Conway's benchmark, with Bruno Senna a further three tenths down in the #1 car.

Ginetta factory squad Team LNT also found significant time around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Charlie Robertson lowered his benchmark to 1m31.006s in the final hour of the morning in the #5 G60-LT-P1, 0.250s clear of Formula 2 racer Luca Ghiotto in the #6 car.

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In LMP2, another F2 frontrunner, Nyck de Vries, handed Racing Team Nederland the top spot in the TDS-run #29 Oreca 07.

The Dutchman posted a 1m32.941s, beating Nicolas Lapierre’s early benchmark in the #42 Cool Racing Oreca by one tenth. Will Stevens kept the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca in the top-three, another three tenths back.

Ferrari continued to lead the way in GTE Pro as Miguel Molina gradually worked his way down to a 1m43.593s in the #71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE.

Kevin Estre placed the all-new Porsche 911 RSR-19 in second, his 1m43.651s just half a tenth shy of the lead. The #51 Ferrari was third by virtue of Alessandro Pier Guidi’s 1m43.945s effort.

Team Project 1 stayed ahead of the field in GTE Am, as Matteo Cairoli led the way with a 1m44.467s in the #57 2018-spec Porsche 911 RSR.

Cairoli also set the second-best time in the #56 sister car, while Ben Barker made it a Porsche 1-2-3 with the #86 Gulf Racing car, staying within half a second of the lead.

The session was interrupted for 12 minutes after an early off for the #47 Cetilar Dallara LMP2 exiting Turn 4, which brought out the red flag.